


all the wrong friends in all the right places

by helenabertinellis



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Harley Quinn (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Flowers, Fluff, Gen, Hair Braiding, Nail Polish, Probably ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 15:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12279426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenabertinellis/pseuds/helenabertinellis
Summary: “Harley, darling, why are you painting the Red Hood’s nails?”“Because he painted mine? Look how pretty they are!”





	all the wrong friends in all the right places

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: All the characters are very OOC. Be ready for that.

There had been _another_ mass breakout from Arkham.

At this point, it wasn’t even surprising. The people of Gotham were so used to it that they didn’t even bat an eyelid as they saw Nightwing chasing after Scarecrow; they just got out the gas masks that by now, all of them carried on their person, and went about their day.

The superheroes of the city were not as lucky. They were responsible for actually getting them back _into_ Arkham, and so they could all tell that they wouldn’t be getting much sleep for the next week or so.

Red Robin was passing out thermoses of his own special blend – black coffee mixed with Red Bull, extra shots of expresso – and the worst thing was that they were all _drinking_ it. This had become their lives.

Batman was off world with the Justice League, so this time they couldn’t count on him to help with anything. Instead they were drawing the names of the Rogues out of a hat to see which they would be fighting.

Jason Todd, Red Hood, got Harley Quinn. He rolled his eyes, put on his helmet, and went to the last place she had been seen; Robinson Park, probably to team up with Poison Ivy. Chances are she would still be there, if only because Oracle’s information was pretty much always correct.

~~

Jason found Harley sitting on the grass with her legs crossed, staring up at the sky. She wasn’t making any trouble at all, though he didn’t know what she thought she’d find up there – Gotham’s skies were almost as dirty as her rivers.

She glanced back at him when she heard him behind her, before looking back up at the sky.

“I guess you’re here to take me back?”

He blinked under his helmet. In all the time that they’d had to fight Harley Quinn, he was pretty sure that she’d never been this cooperative.

“Yeah. Is that going to be a problem?”

She didn’t answer, instead turning her head to look at him, almost as if she was inspecting him.

“Were you really the second Robin?”

Of all the things he was expecting to hear from her, that was _not_ it. He rolled his eyes and sat down next to her.

“Yeah, before your psycho boyfriend killed me.”

“But you’re alive again,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. “Okay, good. Can you paint my nails?”

“ _What_?”

“I’m like, really not in the mood for fightin’ you right now, but you gotta do _somethin_ ’, and my nails are a mess right now.”

Jason shook his head, before he clicked a button on his helmet and took it off to reveal a domino mask over his eyes.

Then he shrugged. “Why the fuck not? Do you have nail polish?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t _ask_ if I didn’t. You grew up handsome, kid.”

He rolled his eyes but held out his hand for the nail polish. He raised an eyebrow at the two he’d been handed – red and blue.

“You really have a theme going on, don’t you. Which hand do you want red and which do you want blue?”

“Blue on the right and red on the left.”

Jason nodded and picked up her right hand, beginning to paint her nails.

“How and why is this happening?” he asked himself, and Harley shrugged. “Seriously. I’m painting _Harley Quinn_ ’s nails in a park. Also, you’re a lot less crazy than usual.”

She shrugged again. “Right now, I’m mostly just waiting for Ivy to get back.” She stared at him again. “You have freckles. They’re cute.”

“I’m going to ignore that. Why Ivy? Don’t you usually work with _him_?”

“We’re… having troubles,” she said after a few seconds. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she rolled her eyes.

He cleared his throat. “Dump him,” he said to her finally. “He’s pretty obviously an abusive ass. You can do better.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, before, “God, you sound just like Ivy. She says the same thing.”

“She’s right.”

Jason put down her right hand, and inspected his work. The blue wasn’t too bad, though it wasn’t perfect by any means either. Harley saw that he had finished and smiled down at it.

“You’re pretty good at this, not-Robin.” He glared at her.

“ _Red Hood_. And yeah, I do it for Spoiler and Black Bat sometimes. They always make my have mine done after.”

Harley gaped, before laughing. “That’s it, when you’re finished with mine I’m painting your nails.” He sighed and just shook his head.

“I’d rather not have a mallet to the head, so do whatever you want.”

She smiled and went to clap her hands, before remembering that her nails were still wet.

Jason just rolled his eyes and grabbed her left hand and the red nail polish.

~~

Ten minutes later and they were still sitting there, though this time it was Harley painting Jason’s nails. It turned out that she had been carrying a lot more than just the red and blue polish on her, instead having a whole collection on her person.

She had lined them up and then pointed to each.

“This is Batman Black, that’s Nightwing Blue, Red Hood Red, Red _Robin_ Red, _Batwoman_ Red, Black Bat Yellow, Spoiler Purple…”

He had raised an eyebrow and picked up one of the bottles, amazed to see that that was what it was actually called. They sold Nightwing Blue in shops.

“I’ll have Red Hood Red, to go with my helmet.”

Harley had nodded happily before opening the bottle and taking Jason’s hand in hers.

“Now that I have something to compare it to, this colour is actually exactly the colour of your helmet. _How_?”

Jason just shrugged. “Who the fuck knows.”

Then the two heard footsteps behind them, and Harley’s face broke out into a smile as Poison Ivy came into her view.

Poison Ivy who, upon seeing the two of them, had frozen where she stood and gaped at them.

“Harley, darling, why are you painting the Red Hood’s nails?”

“Because he painted mine? Look how _pretty_ they are!”

Ivy just shrugged like that somehow made sense to her, and sat down in the grass next to them.

Jason cocked his head in her direction, making sure to not disturb Harley as she did his nails.

“Wasn’t Spoiler supposed to be taking you down?”

“As of right now she’s covered in enough vines and flowers to keep a normal person stuck for a year. Knowing you bats, she’ll be out in half an hour. No need to worry.”

And with that she turned and started braiding Harley’s hair. Jason just closed his eyes in an effort to keep whatever was left of his sanity.

~~

“ – can do better than that _dick_ ,” Jason finished his almost-rant and looked up to see Ivy nodding, and Harley rolling her eyes.

“That’s what I keep _telling_ her. He’s an abusive asshole. Harley’s way too good for him.”

“Exactly.”

By this time Harley had decided to do a second coat on Jason’s nails, and Ivy had finished braiding Harley’s hair and was instead putting flowers in it. Jason was pretty sure that she had put a few in _his_ hair, as well.

He raised an eyebrow. “And if you _did_ decide to dump his ass, _which you should_ , I have hundreds of empty safe houses all over Gotham. And a few in Bludhaven. Even Metropolis, if you want to go somewhere sunnier. You could hide out in those for as long as you wanted.”

“See? Options. My places, his places, your own place…”

Harley rolled her eyes at them again. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I _guess_ it’d be nice to be away from him for a bit…”

Ivy smiled warmly at her now, and Harley sighed. “ _I’ll think about it_.”

~~

Batman sighed as he tuned out the meeting that was going on around him. All the important parts had been said, and now it had all just dissolved into yelling as they fought about, from what he could make out, something to do with _chairs_.

His comm unit let out a beep, and he rolled his eyes as he connected it. Immediately he heard Oracle’s voice.

“B, while you were away, there was a mass breakout from Arkham. Now, while that’s nothing out of the usual… well, I think you should see this.”

His computer made a noise as she shared a file with him, and he opened it. Quietly, so that the League couldn’t hear, he spoke.

“Is that… _Red Hood_ having his nails painted by Harley Quinn, while Poison Ivy puts flowers in their hair?”

“He’s giving her _relationship advice._ Granted, most of it can be summarised with ‘dump him’.”

He shook his head, wishing that his cowl wasn’t in the way so that he could rub his head in hopes of getting rid of the headache he could feel coming on.

“This… probably won’t be good.”

Oracle let out a hum of agreement.

He sighed. “Send me the videos and the photos I know you’re taking of this anyway.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve already sent them to everyone… except Robin. These are going in the scrapbook.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is like!! really ooc for all of them but i wanted this to write this v much,,, so i did
> 
> my [tumblr](http://wwwlw.tumblr.com/)


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